Mozilla is disabling a pair of components stealthily installed by Microsoft earlier this year for Windows users of the Firefox Web browser, warning that the software suffers from a serious security vulnerability.

An add-on that Microsoft silently slipped into Mozilla’s Firefox last February leaves the browser open to attack, Microsoft’s security engineers acknowledged earlier this week.

That’s nine months of constant vulnerability due to Microsoft’s injection (without users’ permission) of software into Firefox. Some suggest that Mozilla should have taken legal action rather than take the gentle route. “Mozilla says Microsoft browser malware can Firefox off,” says one headline.

The criminal enterprise known as Microsoft finds itself embarrassingly exposed in the courtroom, for the IRS belatedly (decades too late) targets the company in an effort to tackle massive tax evasions

A look at some of last week's patent news, with imperative responses that criticise corporate exploitation of patents for protectionism (excluding and/or driving away the competition using legal threats)

Vista 10 to bring new ways for spies (and other crackers) to remotely access people's computers and remotely modify the binary files on them (via Windows Update, which for most people cannot be disabled)